Peter Donnelly: Work-life balance

Work-life balance

The Nuffield Department of Medicine recognises the challenge of balancing work-life commitments and encourages staff to make use of the range of University services and facilities to support them with this.

Peter Donnelly

Professor Peter Donnelly was appointed Director of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics in October 2007. Under his leadership the Centre has worked to recognise the challenges of combining work with caring and other responsibilities.

Professor Donnelly's work involves the development of mathematical models and statistical methods for understanding genetic variation, and its association with phenotypic variation and disease susceptibility.

Podcast: Peter Donnelly

Dr Jenny Taylor interviews Professor Peter Donnelly about how the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics encourages its employees to have a better work-life balance. They discuss the initiatives taken by the Centre including: inclusive scheduling of events, mentoring schemes and financial support for women returning from maternity leave. Professor Donnelly draws on his own experience, in the Statistical Genetics field, about the challenges faced by women at different stages of their careers. He believes that it is important to talk honestly about the challenges faced by people juggling careers and family, and to highlight examples where it works well.